20th
My data belongs... to whoever has it
Last Friday I read, with significant bemusement, a lively debate between Arrington, Scoble, and others related to the recent Friend Connect/Facebook Connect/Data Availability announcements by Google, Facebook, and MySpace. (For the full debate, read deep into the comments…)
The beginning of Arrington’s post - that the announcements, and the Facebook/Google “scruffle” (as Arrington terms it) are about user control - is on the money; that’s not what I find odd. It’s the subsequent religious debate about what data is “mine” and where & how I have the right to control it, export it, and so on that is difficult for me to understand.
Arrington: “My id, friend list, photos, etc. is mine, and I should be able to say what to do with it… My contact information, that i allow you to view in facebook via an image (not free text) is also mine.”
I don’t get this at all. In what sense is my friend list mine? If I’ve written it on a piece of paper and put it in my desk, then, sure, I own that piece of paper. What I own, though, is the physical thing - the paper with scribbles on it - and not some abstract piece of information.
Let me construct a (perhaps odd) scenario: if I rent a billboard, and put my friend list on that billboard, can’t other people copy down the information thereon, and use it as they like (for marketing purposes, reference checks, blackmail… whatever)? How is it possible for me to claim ownership over that information?
Similarly, I don’t see how one can assert some sort of moral right to own or control the data that you create, either explicitly (e.g., connecting with friends on a social network) or implicitly (say, clicking on certain search results on Google or listings on eBay). I’ve taken an action and anyone who legitimately “sees” that action can, if they want, record it and use that information as they desire. (My point of view is close to what Elias Bizannes and some others suggest - in other comments to the same post). I’ll risk another analogy: if I walk down the street and talk to someone or pick something up, anyone who’s watching me is free to record my behavior and do whatever they want with that data (publish it in the paper, sell it to a 3rd party). If they sneak into my house and observe me, that’s different - they’ve trespassed on my property and thus obtained the information illegitimately - but if the data is public, whoever has it, can do whatever they wish with it.
This doesn’t preclude some kind of arrangement between, say, you and the operator of a website to have your data used only in specific ways. That’s a bargain reached between you and the company in question, however, not some sort of natural-law principle. I understand that Arrington and Scoble and others are, to some extent, espousing principles to which they wish internet companies would adhere, but they (especially Arrington: “Pick a side… the side of Good or the side of Wrong”) seem to have convinced themselves that their desires have a moral supremacy.
Lastly: I’ve seen the “my data is MINE” argument come from a lot of tech evangelist types - in many cases, from people who also hold to a anti-intellectual property philosophy, whether with things like patents or with copyrights on digital media. This seems particularly baffling and contradictory, since the second principle is often based in an axiom that intangible goods can’t be owned.